"Accident" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... liberate a poor man's gray hairs from jail." And the good-natured Lady Mirabel dispatched the money necessary for her father's liberation, with a caution to him to be more economical for the future. On a second occasion the captain met with a frightful accident, and broke a plate-glass window in the Strand, for which the proprietor of the shop held him liable. The money was forthcoming on this time too, to repair her papa's disaster, and was carried down by Lady Mirabel's servant to the slip-shod messenger and aid-de-camp of the captain, who brought ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for the return of Alice, for he was afraid lest some accident should happen to her. There were wild characters abroad who pretended to be in search of rebels, and had succeeded in obtaining blood-money by capturing several. While Tobias Platt took care that the soldiers ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... one treated me so unmercifully as those who had only just risen above the people and had quite recently had to work for their living. Once in the market-place as I passed the ironmonger's a can of water was spilled over me as if by accident, and once a stick was thrown at me. And once a fishmonger, a grey-haired old man, stood in my way and looked at ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... up upon the seat, was beating him as hard as he could with a little stick which he carried in his hand; and when he saw our eyes were on him he sate down, I believe very sorry to resign his office: the horse slackened his pace, and no accident happened. ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... unseen valley, and stretching away to a far horizon in deep blue lines of wood. Behind, through other windows, you look out on the gardens proper. There are places that take one's fancy by some accident of expression, by some mystery of accident. This one is high and breezy, both sunny and shady, plain yet picturesque, extremely cheerful, and a little melancholy. It has what in the arts is called "style," and ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... of religion; but surely a good end must justify any means which are not in themselves culpable or ridiculous. The mechanic, for instance, in returning from his daily labour, enters an open church from accident or curiosity, crosses himself from habit, and is led on by the momentary feeling of reverence which that act must generally awaken, to employ five minutes in his devotions, a well spent portion of time, which probably would not otherwise have been rescued from ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... place of the ordinary dark slides for glass plates. The lens should be a modern anastigmatic by a good maker. A focal length of about six inches will be best for a quarter-plate camera. A bad lens makes success impossible even by accident. ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... arches in the sky. Timbered farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of the sea ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... tell how John's further life in Homeville was of comparatively short duration; how David died of injuries received in a runaway accident; how John found himself the sole executor of his late partner's estate, and, save for a life provision for Mrs. Bixbee, the only legatee, and rich enough (if indeed with his own and his wife's money he had not been so before) to live ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... British constitution, and "the glorious Revolution of 1688," this latter, indeed, is one of the best of a bad kind, and that boasted constitution as an example of a house divided against itself, and yet not falling, is a perfect miracle of dynamical art, a lucky accident of politics, scarcely to be looked for again in the history of social development, much less to be eagerly sought after and ignorantly imitated. Nay, rather, if we look at this boasted constitution a little more narrowly, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... of definition. There is no assignable reason why a rational animal should have hair on its head or a nose on its face, and yet man, as a matter of fact, has both; and generally the particular bodily configuration of man can only be regarded as an inseparable accident of his ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... to supply sufficient provisions for all his men. He accordingly appointed Rodrigo Rebello to be Captain of the fortress of Goa, Francisco Pantoja to be Alcaide-Mor or Chief Constable, with the right of succeeding Rebello in case of accident, and Francisco Corvinel to be Factor. It was more difficult to find a governor for the island as distinguished from the city. This post he had conferred, after the first capture, on his ally Timoja, but he now selected a celebrated Hindu captain, who was much respected by the Hindu population, ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... storage of the powder; for [Don Juan says that] all there is on those islands is contained in a chamber of the fort of that city, and that in so prominent a place that it overlooks the wall; and that if by some accident (which may God avert!) this powder should explode, besides the risk to the city, there would remain no more powder in that whole country, nor material with which it could be made. To avoid so great a difficulty there would be built in some of the said four cavaliers two round towers, so that a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... that he had heard of bears on that mountain, and the green afternoon light among the trees was perceptibly paling. He suggested shouting, but she wouldn't let him; she said it would be ridiculous, if the others heard them, and useless if they didn't. So they tramped on till—till the accident happened." ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... unhappy man who had lost everything and had come all this way to consult him, and bade the young man not to be afraid, but to come forward and show himself. So he went boldly up to the moon, and asked if by any accident he had seen a palace with the laths of gold and the tiles of diamond and all the furniture of silver and gold. Once this house belonged to him, but now it was stolen. And the moon said no, but that the sun traveled farther ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... they were doubtless correct; but his sentiments on the future were too soon proved to be fallacious. He remarked:—"From the result of the whole, I trust I am entitled to conclude that the scene which we are now contemplating, is not the transient effect of accident, not the short-lived prosperity of a day, but the general and natural result of regular and permanent causes. Though we may yet be subject to those fluctuations which often occur in the affairs of a mighty nation, and which it is impossible to calculate ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... little fleeting pleasure. Have you fallen passionately in love already with a woman whom you have never seen, a woman with whose name slander has, of course, been busy? If so, your motive in making this visit is based on disrespect, on an error which accident brought ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... on an improvised chariot—a hayrick of the old-fashioned kind, like a cradle, filled with the fragrant timothy and redtop, when the accident, narrated in the first ...
— Dorothy Dale's Camping Days • Margaret Penrose
... the ship seems now advanced, it is our joint opinion that in twelve months there will scarcely be a sound timber in her; but that if she remains in fine weather and happen no accident, she may run six months longer ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Colombo stood up to take his departure. "If God hath reserved any great work to be done, He hath also chosen the man who is to do it. His tasks are not done by accident, or left to the blind or the selfish. Toscanelli thinks that since the world is round, we should reach the Indies by sailing due west from this coast, but in that case India would seem to be far greater than we have believed. If I had the ships ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... up the venerable old volume to lay it away for the night, it opened by accident at Luke xiv., and her eye fell on ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... position of his private affairs that he must offer his resignation as Professor of Literature. In a somewhat abrupt postscript he added that Madame de Barancy was obliged to leave Paris for an indefinite time, and that she confided her little Jack to M. Moronval's paternal care. In case of illness or accident to the child, a letter could be forwarded to the ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... with wreathy hop, Sunburned all over like an Aethiop. And when my Cotnar begins to operate And the tongue of the rogue to run at a proper rate, And our wine-skin, tight once, shows each flaccid dent, I shall drop in with—as if by accident— "You never knew, then, how it all ended, What fortune good or bad attended The little lady your Queen befriended?" —And when that's told me, what's remaining? {900} This world's too hard for ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... be confused with a trust in the sense of a monopolistic enterprise, with which it has no connection except by mere verbal accident, through ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... in these words unfolded to the King and Queen this most foul treason: "Know, then, my dread sovereign Lord the King, that my father, by a strange accident, digging in the ground, found out King Ermerick's great treasure,—a mass of jewels infinite and innumerable; of which being possessed, he grew so proud and haughty, that he held in scorn all the beasts of the wilderness, which before had been his kinsmen and companions. ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... de Beauvoir, active and athletic, was killed in South Africa by the most unlikely accident of being jolted off the front seat in a rutty road and crushed to death under the wheel of an ox-waggon creeping at two miles an hour! This sad event occurred on May 31, 1871: and the newspapers at the time, both ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... our love of independence as she hated Ireland's and it was merely an accident that she did not make of us an Ireland. When she deals with an independence-loving people she makes of them either an Ireland or a United States. And that is the question in South Africa. Shall there be an Ireland in South Africa or a United States ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... recitals, the party in question always meet a foe who vastly outnumbers them, and according to their account, their opponents always suffer terribly in slain, and would have eventually been overcome, and completely routed, had not some trifling accident—which could not be foreseen—occurred to mar the effects ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... The Teutons had devoted their best efforts to the development of guns so big that their opponents were tempted, before they learned better, to regard them as too unwieldy for effective field service. Both were right, the French in the full sense and intention of the term, the Teutons by pure accident. ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... it for granted, first of all, that there is an essential connection between Mr. Lincoln's character and his violent and bloody death. It is no accident, no arbitrary decree of Providence. He lived as he did, and he died as he did, because he was what he was. The more we see of events, the less we come to believe in any fate or destiny except the destiny of character. It will be our duty, then, to see what there was in the character of our great ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... momentary excitement as one chair broke from its fastenings and slid down with a crash against the bulwarks. The occupant was picked up in a hysterical condition and taken below. The deck steward tied the chair more firmly, so that the accident would not happen again. The young English girl was opposite John Kenyon when this disaster took place, and her attention being diverted by fear for the safety of the occupant of the sliding chair, her care for herself was withdrawn at the very moment when it was most needed. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... the invariable, the great and general ideas which are fixed and inherent in universal Nature; the Dutch, on the contrary, to literal truth and a minute exactness in the detail, as I may say, of Nature modified by accident. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order, which ought to give place to a beauty of a superior ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... does not make this supreme appeal, there are other writers, all at hand, set apart from the great multitude of lesser spirits by that final weigher of human talents whom Bacon calls Good Fame. It is not that among the myriad volumes of a library we must painfully and largely by accident discover the few of highest worth—scanning each doubtfully as one searches for an unknown visitor in the crowd alighting from a train. No, the best books are the best known, the most accessible. Lists of the ten, the fifty, the one hundred best books are at our disposal, and, if they do ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... the way onely, omitting how before this accident a great Water-dogge ranne ouer his bed, the doore of the chamber where he lay being shut, no such one knowne (for carefull enquiry was made) either to haue been in that houfe where hee lodged, or in the ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... admiral Haddock, who commanded the British squadron in the Mediterranean, and who was supposed to be restricted by the instructions he had received from the ministry, though in fact his want of success was owing to accident. Admiral Vernon had written from the West Indies to his private friends, that he was neglected, and in danger of being sacrificed. Notwithstanding the numerous navy which the nation maintained, the Spanish privateers made prize of the British merchant ships with ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... she made a movement as though to quit the supper-room, but, either by accident or ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... would be fatal. Daylight, whose whim it was to make them drunk by hundreds and by thousands, was the one who initiated this life saving. He wanted Dawson to have its night, but, in his deeper processes never careless nor wanton, he saw to it that it was a night without accident. And, like his olden nights, his ukase went forth that there should be no quarrelling nor fighting, offenders to be dealt with by him personally. Nor did he have to deal with any. Hundreds of devoted followers saw to it that the evilly disposed were rolled in the snow and hustled ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... this unusual incident, I received my chief at the companion- ladder. He grasped my hand, squeezed it tight, drew me into the cabin, and said, "Your brother, the Duc d'Orleans, is dead, killed in a carriage accident. My orders are to send you to Paris at once." The rough old sailor's face betrayed his deep emotion. But how shall I describe my own, under such a terrible and unexpected blow? This world's sorest sorrows are those that tear the human heart-strings, ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... of Steyne came abroad after his accident, the Colonial Secretary bowed up to him and congratulated himself and the Service upon having made so excellent an appointment. These congratulations were received with a degree of gratitude which may be imagined on the ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... at least, it will be said, is not thus limited: no, not by its subject; because it carries us amongst cities and princes in a state of peace; but it is equally limited by the spirit of manners; we are never admitted amongst women, except by accident (Nausicaa)—by ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a minute standing where she was, pointed to the candle, grumbled, 'Why not put it out ... an accident happens in a minute?' and as she went out, could not refrain, though only at a distance, from making the sign of ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... afore company; time was, he'd have come down for me, before ever so many fine folks, and have ate his crumbs out of my hand, at my first call; but, poor fellow, it's not his fault now; he does not know me now, Sir, since my accident, because of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... well paid. She was very eccentric, and rather amusing. When a woman says everything that comes into her head, out of a great deal of chaff there will drop some few grains of wheat; and so sometimes, more by accident than otherwise, she said what is called a good thing. Now, a good thing is repeated, while all the nonsense is forgotten; and Lady R—was considered a wit as well as an authoress. She was a tall woman; I should think very near, if not past, fifty years of age, with the remains of beauty ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... instances, the Shilluk Kings. Parallel between Shilluk King, Grail King and Vegetation Deity. Sone de Nansai and the Lament for Tammuz. Identity of situation. Plea for unprejudiced criticism. Impossibility of such parallels being fortuitous; the result of deliberate intention, not an accident of literary invention. If identity of central character be admitted his relation to Waste Land becomes fundamental factor in criticizing ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... country bumpkins, and for 'sweet-mouths,' he has culled-with curious taste among the prettiest lasses in the neighborhood; though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult to keep in tune, your pretty female singer being exceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to accident." ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... Given to John, by a Christian writer, William Eugene Brown. This dragon had nine heads, while ours has only one. I believe I had the best of the argument so far as heads went. This young woman, a graduate of a large college, wore an amulet, which she believes protects her from accident. She possessed a bottle of water from a miraculous spring in Canada, which she said would cure any disease, and she told me that one of the Catholic churches there, Ste. Anne de Beaupre, had a small piece of the wrist-bone of the mother of the Virgin, which would heal and had healed thousands. ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... enough, though more encouraging than was justified by the real state of affairs, with reference to his intended fleet. On the 14th of October he wrote to explain his position, as he himself understood it, to the Greek Government. "By the most fortunate accident," he said, "I have met Mr. Hobhouse here, who, from his correspondence with Messrs. Ricardo and others in London, enables me to state to you that the two large steamboats will be completed on the 28th day of this month, and that they will proceed on the following day for the ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... cried Jack. "Have you met with an accident? Where have you been? In a hospital? What became of you? Why ...
— Lost on the Moon - or In Quest Of The Field of Diamonds • Roy Rockwood
... I know, sir, is the Bay of Marmorice. It is on the mainland almost opposite Rhodes, and within a day's easy sail. We went into it quite by accident, for the entrance might be passed without notice, but we had been chasing a suspicious craft, and saw her disappear, and, following her, found ourselves in a great landlocked harbour, big enough to hold a hundred ships-of-war, and ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... deserves full credit, and we should give old Scrofton his due, for, though his theories are nonsensical, he is an excellent boatswain," observed Jack. "I am convinced that every accident on board a ship occurs from the carelessness, and often from the culpable neglect, of some one concerned in fitting her out, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... was not thinking—it was quite an accident. The fact is, Maud, your poor papa quite mistook me. I had no prejudice respecting him—no theory. I never knew what to think about him. I do not think Silas a product of nature, but a child of the Sphinx, and I ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... freshness; it was in the year 1833. I saw the unveiling of Napoleon's pillar. I gazed on the world-experienced King Louis Philippe, who is evidently defended by Providence. I saw the Duke of Orleans, full of health and the enjoyment of life, dancing at the gay people's ball, in the gay Maison de Ville. Accident led in Paris to my first meeting with Heine, the poet, who at that time occupied the throne in my poetical world. When I told him how happy this meeting and his kind words made me, he said that ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... of ammunition in the regiment. I never learned that there was a show of the enemy. Perhaps it became known at headquarters that we had no loading for our guns. At all events, a train was sent out to take us back to Alexandria. We got back without accident, and spent the night in the ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... can say that we got left ashore by accident, when our craft sailed from Brest, and are going to rejoin her at Saint Malo, where she was going to put in. I think, perhaps, that that would be a better story than that we had run away. I don't know that the authorities ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... distinguished at the bar for his fidelity to his clients, for untiring industry, great care and accuracy in the preparation of his cases, uncommon legal acumen, and extraordinary solidity of judgment. As an adviser, no man had more the confidence of his clients, for he trusted nothing to chance or accident when certainty could be attained, and felt his way cautiously to his conclusions, which, once reached, rested upon sure foundations, and to which he clung with remarkable pertinacity. Judges soon learned to repose confidence in his opinions, and he always ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... main secret—the hidden source from which the beauty and strength of a nature, so persistently fresh in the midst of a somewhat jaded world, might be derived. But Marius had never yet seen these friends; and it was almost by accident that the veil of reserve was at last lifted, and, with strange contrast to his visit to the poet's villa at Tusculum, he ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... at me thoughtfully a while. "Young man," he answered, "I ain't saying nothing and it may have been an accident after all. Have you ever been up in that part ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... him is, that all ranks and classes stand pretty much on an equality, and that as regards modes of expression the count and his coachman are precisely on a level. There is scarcely a trait of humour in these pieces—never, by any accident, anything bordering on wit. The characters talk the veriest commonplaces, and announce the most humdrum intentions in phraseology ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... As I have sufficient means to stock a small caravan for myself, I think now of trying it. My present trip has been merely one of experiment and exploration. I am satisfied with the result, and, if no accident arise, you may see me back on the Del Norte before either of ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... incensed bailiff, "Hast thou disobeyed my orders, and failed in thy respect to the emperor? Why hast thou dared to pass before the sacred badge of thy sovereign without the evidence of homage required of thee?" "Verily," answered Tell, with mock humility, "how this happened I know not; 'tis an accident, and no mark of contempt. Suffer me, therefore, ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... about up, the man on the bed began to stir and show signs that he was coming out of the unconscious fit. Pretty soon he opened his eyes and asked, in a liquor-thickened voice, where he was. I told him he had had an accident and was in the hands of his friends; and at that he dropped off to sleep, and was still sleeping when a farm wagon stopped at the cottage gate and the Good Samaritan came in. His search had been successful. Our broken-winged bird was a young farmer ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... 3,000 rank and file; adding 13 per cent, for the officers, sergeants, and drummers, brings it up to 3,400; and we still have to count in the artillery drivers, etc.] British. It was brought on by accident in the evening, and was waged with obstinate courage and savage slaughter till midnight. On both sides the forces straggled into action by detachments. The Americans formed the attacking party. As before, Scott's brigade bore the brunt of the fight, and over half of his men were killed or wounded; ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... often verged on foolhardiness, he soon exhibited his consummate abilities so clearly, that even his enemies were forced to acknowledge that they had never given him the credit he deserved. "It was soon perceived," observes an author by no means friendly to the Huguenots, "that the accident (of Conde's death) had happened only in order to reveal in all its splendor the merits of the Admiral de Chatillon. The admiral had had during his entire life very difficult and complicated matters to unravel, and, nevertheless, he had never had any that were not far below ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... reason why Betty had no other companion than Jan on the day of her accident was the fact that the Master had an appointment at Upcroft that morning with Dick. The Master was very good-natured in his talk with Dick, but he was also quite firm and straightforward. Dick rather shamefacedly pleaded guilty to having paid ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... was the consequence of the escape of those men, that so great a number came now together; or whether they came ignorantly, and by accident, on their usual bloody errand, the Spaniards could not, it seems, understand: but whatever it was, it had been their business, either to have: concealed themselves, and not have seen them at all; much less to have let the savages ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... pen of the Apostle of the American Girl. How he could have ridden within arm's reach of her through all the daylight hours of a long summer day remained as one of Ford's unanswered enigmas; but it required an accident and a most embarrassing contretemps to make him ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... of the hills, and brings the coolness and refreshment of the shady wood into the burgh street in the most intense days of summer warmth. She filled her stoups composedly, set them down and gossiped, upset them as by accident, and waited patiently her turn to fill them anew. Thus by twenty minutes' skilful loitering she secured from the baxter's daughter the news that there was a supper at the Sheriff's that very night, and that very large tarts were at the firing in the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... "care and caution," as they had scarcely time to make Adairsville, before the down freight train would leave that point. Sure enough, they discovered, this side of Adairsville, three rails torn up and other impediments in the way. They "took up" in time to prevent an accident, but could proceed with the train no further. This was most vexatious, and it may have been in some degree disheartening; but it did not cause the slightest relaxation of efforts, and, as the result proved, was but little in the way of the dead game, pluck and resolutions ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... informed—of the female cases in certain hospitals, are those of women-servants suffering from diseases produced by overwork in household labour, especially by carrying heavy weights up the steep stairs of our London houses—when we consider the large proportion of accident cases which are the result, if not always of neglect in our social arrangements, still of danger incurred in labouring for us, we shall begin to feel that our debts towards the poorer classes, for whom this ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... foolery. Aspiring young ladies, who read flaming accounts of some 'fancy fair in high life,' suddenly grow desperately charitable; visions of admiration and matrimony float before their eyes; some wonderfully meritorious institution, which, by the strangest accident in the world, has never been heard of before, is discovered to be in a languishing condition: Thomson's great room, or Johnson's nursery-ground, is forthwith engaged, and the aforesaid young ladies, from mere charity, exhibit themselves for three days, from twelve to four, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... now, as on other first days, all with one accord in one place. We read not that they came together by virtue of any precedent revelation, nor by accident, but contrariwise by agreement, they were together 'with one accord,' or by appointment, in pursuance of their duty, setting apart that day, as they had done the first days afore, to the holy service of their blessed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... mad in no time, is called the Gandharva spirit. And that evil spirit by whose influence men are always tormented by Pisachas, is called the Pisacha spirit. When the spirit of Yakshas enters into the system of a human being by some accident, he loses his reason immediately, and such a spirit is called the Yaksha spirit. The man who loses his reason on account of his mind being demoralised with vices, runs mad in no time, and his illness ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... on, on our present course, Captain Greenly," observed Sir Gervaise, anxious to justify to himself the evolution he contemplated, "the rear of our line and the van of the French will be brought within fair range of shot from each other, and, by an accident, we might lose a ship; since any vessel that was crippled, would necessarily sag directly down upon the enemy. Now, I propose to keep away in the Plantagenet, and just brush past the leading French ships, at about the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... for all Roy's joking, he was deeply interested. Like most important clues, the discovery was but a little thing, yet it could not be accounted for except on the theory that Harry Stanton had somehow gotten back to the launch after the accident, whatever the accident was. It meant just that—nothing less and nothing more; though, indeed, it did mean more to Pee-wee and as he slept that night, in the gently rocking boat, he dreamed that he had vowed a solemn vow to Mr. Stanton's daughter to "find her brother or perish in ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... commanded the fleet at Navarino, he would protest against the baseness and ignominy of such an insinuation in the most solemn manner; or if it was to be understood that it referred to that which happened by accident, and which stood across the object we had in view, he entered his protest against it. However much he might lament the effusion of blood which had taken place at Navarino; however much he might lament that we had not yet accomplished the pacification of the two countries, and effected ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the interest of her friends, procured him to be admitted a King's scholar in Westminster school[1]; his early inclination to poetry was occasioned by reading accidentally Spencer's Fairy Queen, which, as he himself gives an account, 'used to lye in his mother's parlour, he knew not by what accident, for she read no books but those of devotion; the knights, giants, and monsters filled his imagination; he read the whole over before he was 12 years old, and was made a poet, as immediately as a child is made ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... comes the only moment in this story where accident—mere accident—plays a part. If Davidson had gone home that day for tiffin, there would be now, after twelve years or more, nothing changed ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... counted time entirely by Sundays. To see the pulpit occupied by any other form and face than those of the rector was a calamity hardly to be borne; if the exit of the school party were delayed by any accident so that Mr. and Mrs. Ellerton overtook them in the churchyard, Marcella would walk home on air, quivering with a passionate delight, and in the dreary afternoon of the school Sunday she would spend her time happily in trying to write down ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I'm officially chief tester at the eastern factory, up the Hudson, except when there's a race on. Since Darling French got married, I've raced with Gerard. Were you aiming to collect that horseshoe with a nail in it, ahead there on the course, or will it be an accident?" ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... determines the course of a man's life. The greater part of human actions, however humiliating to our moral and intellectual dignity, is the result of sheer accident. That the accidents of life should harmonize with the immutable decrees of Providence, is the great mystery of an honest and thinking mind. The reading accidentally of a fugitive brochure, thrown upon the table of ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... said:—I ought to explain that I am here rather by accident. The speaker who was to have addressed you was my great personal friend, Professor Gilbert Murray, and you have greatly suffered because he is not present. He is prevented by being at Geneva on a matter connected with the League, and he ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... hour—of all the hours, nearest akin to midnight, for each has its own calmness and repose. Soon, however, the world begins to turn again upon its axis, and it seems the busiest epoch of the day, when an accident impedes the march of sublunary things. The draw being lifted to permit the passage of a schooner laden with wood from the Eastern forests, she sticks immovably right athwart the bridge. Meanwhile, on both sides of the chasm a throng of impatient travellers fret and fume. Here are two sailors ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pollution from pesticide use; southern part of the country contaminated with fallout from 1986 nuclear reactor accident at ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... period of Galileo's life, in the year 1593, he met with an accident which had nearly proved fatal. A party at Padua, of which he was one, were enjoying, at an open window, a current of air, which was artificially cooled by a fall of water. Galileo unfortunately fell asleep ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... else to read, so he took it a couple of weeks ago. I—I guess I'll ask him for it some day soon. Oh, yes, there is something I want to speak to you about, Joey. A couple o' years ago I took out a life insurance policy in favor of Ernie, and also an accident policy. I couldn't keep up the accident one, but the other's paid up to next January. Maybe I won't have to pay on it again. It's for five thousand. I want you to see that he gets the money if—if I—well, you know. The policy is in the safe over at old Isaac's pawnshop,—you ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... foretold to the King that he would die in a carriage, and the prophecy had made so great an impression upon his mind, that he always endeavoured to conceal it under a show of gaiety, particularly when any accident occurred by which it appeared likely to be verified. In the year 1597, while he was travelling near Mouy, in Picardy, the coach in which he rode was tumbled down a precipice; while the danger incurred at Neuilly was scarcely less great; and the prediction ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... small room that showed willows in the west Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled, Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessed What need or accident made them ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas
... why you can't go home and—hum—I don't like to advise your telling a lie, but you might let her infer that it was an accident. OR, if you really mean to be your own master, you can tell her you did it purposely and will do it again if she ever ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... exhibition of his career. He stalled and blocked, fought parsimoniously, and strove to gather strength. Also, he fought as foully as a successful fighter knows how. Every trick and device he employed, butting in the clinches with the seeming of accident, pinioning Rivera's glove between arm and body, heeling his glove on Rivera's mouth to clog his breathing. Often, in the clinches, through his cut and smiling lips he snarled insults unspeakable and vile in Rivera's ear. Everybody, from the referee ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... stress and distraction, Dr. van Heerden had arisen above his horizon, and there was something in Dr. van Heerden's manner which inspired confidence and respect. They had met by accident at a meeting held to liquidate the Shining Strand Alluvial Gold Mining Company—a concern which had started forth in the happiest circumstances to extract the fabulous riches which had been discovered by an American philanthropist (he is now selling Real Estate by correspondence) on a Southern ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... of a passenger coach. Don't jump off a coach when it is in motion. Don't wilfully break down, injure, remove, or destroy a milestone, mile-board, or guide-post. Don't go out of the road-way upon adjoining land. Don't suppose that everything that frightens your horse or causes an accident is a defect in the highway. Don't fail to give notice in writing if you meet with an accident on the road. Don't convey land encumbered with a right of way. Don't keep a ...
— The Road and the Roadside • Burton Willis Potter
... grew constantly more sure and masterly, his power as a draughtsman threatened to leave him altogether. He was to have drawn one of the frontispieces in the "Germ," but, although he toiled with a design, he could not make it "come right." At last a happy accident put him on the true track, and revealed his proper genius to himself. He began to make small drawings of poetical subjects in water-colors—most of those which I have seen are not more than twenty inches by twelve—over which he labored, and into which ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... team, stood near the door. Jule and Dolly came next. Wild Frank, a fleet but treacherous Morgan, stood fifth and for a moment I considered taking him. He was strong and of wonderful staying powers but so savage and unreliable that I dared not risk an accident. I passed on to bay Kittie whose bright eyes seemed to inquire, "What ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... How the accident happened I do not know. I suppose Prosper was nervous. I am sure he was very much in love. Anyhow, this is how, on that famous first night, the ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... river Save right across the Serb territory. The Serbo-Croatian race unwittingly occupied a country that was cut in two by the line that divides East from West, and separates Constantinople and the Eastern Church from Rome and the Western. This curious accident has had consequences fatal to the unity of the race, since it has played into the hands of ambitious and unscrupulous neighbours. As to the extent of the country occupied by the Serbs at the beginning of their history it is ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... and of reaction, were against him, and most of all was against him the fatality of dates. Not at human bidding do the dead arise and walk. The most deeply to be regretted event that happened in the course of the Italian revolution gave his inevitable failure the appearance of a fortuitous accident. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... one side, except the Annex "It he took in both hands, slowly raised it to his lips, then removed it carefully, and seated himself in the window." It had seemed to the mother too wonderful to be true, that first time; but now she was convinced that "neither imagination nor accident had anything to do with it." Later, little Gordon let the author of his being see him do it. After that he did it frequently; probably every time anybody was looking. I would rather have that child than a chromo. If this tale has ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to explain how Don Rafael had come to be found in this wild spot, altogether away from the path which he should have followed to the hacienda Las Palmas. Accident, not design, had conducted him to ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... again. She had expected him all through the day, all through the night, and the cause of her present deep anxiety was not solicitude about her father, the desire to learn the result of the conspiracy discovered; no, it was only the longing for him, the terrible dread that some accident ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... drunkards leave no or few offspring. They die of their own excesses at an early age; or their conduct makes them unattractive as mates; or they give so little care to their children that the latter die from neglect, exposure or accident. As these drunkards would tend to hand down their own inborn peculiarity, or weakness for alcohol, to their children, it must be obvious that their death results in a smaller proportion of such persons in the next generation. In other words, natural selection is at work again here, with alcohol ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... know this child better than he had done, and calculate upon her weakness? The shock, instead of disabling him, had caused a revival of his strength. He could walk more firmly this morning than at any time since his accident. His brain was clear and active; he knew that it behoved him to reconsider all he had been doing, and that quickly, ere it was too late. He must even forget that aching of the heart until he had leisure to ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... happened in the girl's eighteen years of life in the shape of any serious accident either by land or by sea. It was difficult to realise that mishaps could possibly occur, and, with her eyes fixed on the wondrous blue above and below, Theo rowed on, calling herself lazy because she did not seem, somehow, able to get so fast ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... he is engrafted into Christ; he receives absolution and partakes of the holy supper for the strengthening of his faith, commending his soul and body to Christ. Why should such a one fear death? Though it come at any time, in form of pestilence or accident, it will always find the Christian ready and well prepared, be he awake or asleep; for he is ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... there has been an accident, my lady," he said, as apologetically, as if he were responsible ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... than is the vain and transitory author by the phrase. But I had rather learn my decoration of the Japanese, and place against the blank wall one pot plain from the wheel, holding one singular branch in blossom, in the attitude and accident of growth. And I could wish abstention to exist, and even to be evident, in my words. In literature as in all else man merits his subjection to trivialities by a kind of economical greed. A condition for using justly and gaily any decoration would seem to be a certain reluctance. ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... I have yet to say; for I have had no adventure, no accident, nor seen a soul but my cousin Richard Walpole, whom I met on the road and spoke to in his chaise. To-morrow I shall lie at Chantilly, and be at Paris early on Thursday. The Churchills are there already. Good night— and a ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... CLOUD. For a moment after the accident to Andy's ship, Tom had slowed up his craft, but he soon went on again, after he had satisfied himself that his enemies ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... widening the trail and have constructed a corduroy bridge, or rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of the last wagon which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the next. Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the waist, are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down the incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak and terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the level the leg of ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... had an accident, Mrs. Davis," John explained, putting the child gently down, and steadying her on her uncertain little feet, until her eyes were fairly opened. "So I came home with her to ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... for, save a few luggers swinging from the little buoys that dotted the surface of the sea, there was not a sign of an accident by the upsetting of a boat, or of any one struggling in the water. Everything looked bright and cheerful in the morning sun, and after sculling along for some time he was beginning to think that the ...
— A Terrible Coward • George Manville Fenn
... engaged in a work he does not like can preserve many saving illusions about himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when our appointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception. The Assistant Commissioner did not like his work at home. The police work he had been ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... however, not much time for reflection, for he had to gather up every link of evidence. How was it that this accident had occurred? The frame of the window had fallen out with Andre, and lay in fragments on the pavement. He picked up one of the pieces, and at once saw what had been done; the woodwork had been sawed almost in two, and the putty with which ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... circle of friends and relations began, to pass away, the outer circle of admirers was rapidly spreading. Between the years 1830 and 1840 Wordsworth passed from the apostle of a clique into the most illustrious man of letters in England. The rapidity of this change was not due to any remarkable accident, nor to the appearance of any new work of genius. It was merely an extreme instance of what must always occur where an author, running counter to the fashion of his age, has to create his own public in defiance of the established ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... interesting as works of art than as expressions of hopeless superstition. That Virgin who, in all her portraits, is dressed in a churn-shaped gown and who holds a Child similarly habited, is the Madonna most efficacious in cases of dreadful accident and hopeless sickness, if we may trust the pictures which represent her interference. You behold a carriage overturned and dragged along the ground by frantic horses, and the fashionably dressed lady and gentleman in the carriage about to be dashed into millions of pieces, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... without the yawl, which made us suspect all was not right; and I was much distressed to hear that Mr. Fitzmaurice had been seriously wounded in the ankle by the discharge of a gun which had gone off within a few yards of it. Mr. Bynoe went on shore immediately to assist in bringing him on board. The accident having happened several days ago, and the whole charge of shot being buried in his foot, his sufferings were intense. It was thought for some time that amputation would be necessary; but though this was not the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes |
